Commentary: Foundations in performance

Abstract

In this article, I outline the principal conceptions of performance that have guided language‐oriented work on performance, where they come from, and how they relate to or diverge from one another. I consider first the undeveloped potential for performance‐oriented work in variationist sociolinguistics, and then turn to performance as virtuosic display, as developed principally in linguistic anthropology, performance as theatricality, with special attention to the analysis of the interaction order, and cultural performance as a marked, heightened event that affords a richly reflexive vantage point on culture. I conclude with a discussion of mediated performance and the productiveness of the concept of remediation in bridging the gap between co‐present performance and mediated performance.